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100 Best Denver Area & Front Range Day Hikes | 
 enlarge | Author: Pamela Irwin
Creator: David Harlan Irwin
Publisher: Westcliffe Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy Used: $0.50
You Save: $19.45 (97%)
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 988470
Media: Paperback
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 1565794494
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.510978883
EAN: 9781565794498
ASIN: 1565794494
Publication Date: June 2003
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
bad directions all around June 1, 2007
Milo
Not only did we find it difficult to find the trailheads but we found it difficult to follow the described trails. The trail directions are not broken out separately but included throughout the narrative. You must have an accompanying trail map to make sense of it. I also found basic info lacking, like this trail is snowbound until June or this trail doesn't allow dogs, etc.
Like the photos, appreciate the descriptions: "saucy chipmunks" and such, but didn't like the lack of basic clarity.
 Needs updating and trail maps April 30, 2007
L.S. Anderson (Denver USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
There are some important facts that, for various reasons, you will not find covered in this book and would be very helpful for you to know.
1) #100, Castlewood Canyon State Park, Lake Gulch/Inner Canyon Loop. If you start out on the Inner Canyon trail, there is a section where you have to cross Cherry Creek. At this point there is what looks like a makeshift footbridge placed in the water between boulders. Continuing after the bridge there is a skinny log you then have to traverse to get to land. Unfortunately, with babies, toddlers, or dogs, it's hazardous to get to the boulders to arrive to the little bridge or cross the log. I watched a dog get washed away by the current when it fell in the water; my own dog fell in the water in between boulders right behind him. This treacherous crossing is not described in the book, so I'm wondering if there ever was a decent footbridge covering this section of the creek. It is also frightening to cross the skinny log as you feel like you're in a log rolling exhibition with nothing to grab on to if you lose your balance. Then, there is no footbridge at all that crosses over West Cherry Creek as described in the book. The trail is marked with a sign that says that portion of the trail is closed due to restoration (as of this writing, we didn't see any indication that restoration had begun), then it leads you farther down the path to another section of the creek to cross over, but here still, there is no footbridge or safe path to traverse. There was really no safe, easy way to cross the creek at any point along this path, which was even more treacherous than our first crossing. We realize the water level is much higher than later in the year and that's why we had so much difficulty crossing both times. We were there on a very busy Sunday afternoon with many other visitors, and all of us were wandering up and down the shoreline wondering exactly how we were going to get across to the other side of the creek where the path continued. Thank goodness there were so many kind people who helped others get safely across. But many of the visitors with babies, youngsters and dogs, who had no idea of the dangers of crossing the creek, had to turn back. Ms. Irwin's book describes this trail as easy; the state park map describes it as moderate, and with the footbridges washed out it is moderate to difficult, depending on who is in your hiking group.
2) #95, Gazebo Boardwalk/Niedrach Nature Trail. Most of this trail is in a wildlife refuge, which is not mentioned in the book at all. Nor does she mention there are no pets allowed in this section, so if you bring your dog along for a hike, most of all that Ms. Irwin describes about this trail you will not be able to see, including the visitor center and the Gazebo Boardwalk. Even though I completely understand about not allowing pets in this section, it was so disappointing to drive all that way to the park, pay the park fee, and find out that it wasn't even available for us to view.
It would have been very helpful to include even small maps of the actual trails, because we've been confused over where the described trail actually starts and ends. A lot of these trails are on the web, so I suggest printing your own road maps and trail maps before starting your adventure.
So far we've been to seven of the trails. As we continue on, I'll come back to this review and post any other warnings or changes that need to be made to the descriptions. My suggestion to the author if this book is updated--please include this kind of service to your readers. Mention in the book that if there are any changes to the parks that they can view updates on your own website (if you don't have one then create one--it is so easy to do nowadays with blog websites), then print your URL in the book so they can visit it for any important updates given by you or your readers.
UPDATES:
Hike #60, Trading Post Loop, Red Rocks Park. The exit does not say, "Morrison/CO 74" as stated in the book, but rather, Morrison Rd/CO 8. This applies to all hikes in this region where you must take this same exit--Hikes #61, 62, 63, 64, 65, and 66.
Hike #11, Anne U. White Trail, Fourmile Canyon Creek. It is approx. 1 mile to Wagon Wheel Gap Rd. (not 2 miles), and about 1-1/2 miles to Pinto Drive. She says there is limited parking; there are only five spaces total. Then there are "no parking" signs up and down this road beyond this small parking lot, so needless to say we could find no place to park and had to go look for another hiking area.
Hike #9, Hogback Ridge Loop, Boulder Valley Ranch. Directions say it's about 0.4 miles north past the Hwy 36/N Broadway intersection; it is more like one mile. Look for the sign that says Boulder Valley Ranch on the east side of Hwy 36. It's 1.0 mile (NOT 0.2 mile) down the access road, and the parking lot is on the RIGHT, not LEFT.
Bad directions, lots of great hike descriptions, though March 23, 2007
T. Slater (Colorado)
I decided to make this a summer of hiking in my own backyard, and I agree, I had trouble finding many of the hikes because of things like Lee Hill Rd instead of the streetsign, Lee Hill Drive, little things like that can throw you off, I took my own computer maps with me before most hikes. Also, you will see 4 miles out and back, then realize the trailmap at the trail head will tell you that a route is 3.7 miles one way. You must read their descriptions to see what they are calling the half-way point. On the other hand, they had many great hikes listed, many features very accurately described. Prepare yourself with your own map first, and you will save many headaches.
 TERRIBLE DIRECTIONS... July 6, 2005
S. M. Chen (Denver)
Follow the directions in this book and you will waste precious hiking time driving around looking for trailheads or, worse yet, you'll end up hiking around in vain. We're not bad with directions, either. I'm a former Army land navigation and orienteering instructor, so I knows how to read a map!
It took 6 hikes, but my boyfriend and I finally learned our lesson. We either had great difficulty finding the 6 hikes we selected from this book or ended up not finding them at all! The directions are terrible! For example, the directions given for the hike we went on last weekend -- Silver Dollar Lake -- are quite "off." The book instructs you to drive 1 mile past a campground to a road that will lead you the the trailhead. Well, guess what, that road is located more like .2 miles past the campground. We ended up finding another road that was about 1.1 miles past the campground and hiked up it, only to find that it was a dead-end with no trailhead in sight. Ridiculous.
Beware!
UPDATE: This book still sucks. We thought we've give it another try, after not using it for about a year. This time, we did find the trail, but were met by a sign that said, "No Dogs Permitted." The book did not mention this. We had to leave and seek out another trail because we had our dog with us. Of course, we stupidly tried another hike in the book, which we never did find. Thankfully, we happened across a completely unrelated trail and did enjoy our hike. Don't buy this book. It's not accurate.
Poor job! May 20, 2005
Joseph Keating
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A guide book needs clear directions. I followed four of their hikes and got mixed up one way or the other on all four. We headed to one place with a dog, but were met with a 'no pets' policy not mentioned in the book. Or distances were omitted or inaccurate. I hope the authors hear of my complaint - don't just write a book for its shelf appeal.
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